1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present general inventive concept relate to an apparatus and method of photographing a moving image to limit the number of thumbnail images by adjusting a time interval between thumbnail images being generated in real time when the moving image is photographed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a moving image photographing apparatus having a photographing function, such as a camcorder, a digital camera, or a mobile camera phone, photographs a moving image, and records the moving image in a recording medium, such as a flash memory, a hard disc, or the like. With the increasing development of recording medium technology, storage capacity is continuously increasing and access speed is also rising, so that moving images having been photographed by the moving image photographing apparatus over a long period of time can be recorded and reproduced.
As the moving image photographing apparatus can store high-capacity moving images therein, a time needed to search for a desired moving image in a plurality of stored moving images is also increased. In order to reduce the time needed to search for the desired moving image, there is proposed a new method capable of generating the principal scenes of the moving images as thumbnail images, and searching for a desired scene using the generated thumbnail images.
According to the above-mentioned method to generate thumbnail images when the photographed moving image file stored in the recording medium is reproduced, a predetermined time is needed for a process in which a few representative images are extracted from the photographed moving images and converted into other formats of such thumbnail images, so that a user who wants to use such thumbnail images must wait a significantly long period of time until such thumbnail images are actually utilized.
In the meantime, a method of storing a thumbnail image at intervals of a predetermined time simultaneously while photographing a moving image may have less necessity of additionally generating thumbnail images. However, the longer the photographing time of the moving image, the higher the number of generated thumbnail images. As a result, the above-mentioned method is unable to satisfy an original intention of a user who wants to easily and rapidly search for a desired scene in the stored moving image file.